Steps to Bioregional Independence

The Cascadian Independence Project firmly believes that any transitionary process must be an inherently democratic one. It cannot be any specific group attempting to assert their positions and ideologies within the current political framework. Instead it must be a social, cultural and political movement that seeks to embrace a peaceful and nonviolent horizontal organizing structure that uses a decentralized grassroots approach to transition to an open and transparent form of government truly representative of it’s citizens.

This process must include the following steps:

The passage of a referendum amendment in each of the following states and provinces to be included, voted on and accepted by a majority of the citizens of those places. This would inherently delegitimize the current governments and establish a legal framework.

The creation of a new constitutional framework, including the election of a constituent assembly, through a decentralized, bioregional, and proportional process. This body would have one year to create a new constitution, to be approved by a majority of citizens living within the Cascadia bioregion and to establish a timeframe for new elections.

The core of Cascadia would be the current states of Washington, Oregon, and province of British Columbia but bordering regions would be allowed to join through a majority referendum vote by their citizens.

After a referendum vote, panels of experts in their respective fields would be created in areas such as public health, open governance, information technology, conservation, transportation, social services, human rights, bioregional infrastructure and economic cooperation and planning to assist and provide recommendations for the constituent assembly. These panels would be tasked with the going over previous laws, to make sure rational public policy trumps politics, and for the creation of a new governing body. It would be the goal of these panels to create a decentralized democratic governing body that takes full advantage of new developments in technology to encourage citizen engagement, creating a body that is truly for and powered by the citizens of Cascadia.

Existing states and voting districts would be redrawn and broken down along bioregional lines that would incorporate cultural, environmental, economic, and political values as well as population size to reduce voter marginalization and increase transparency and citizen engagement and efficacy. To help with cultural differences between east and west, north and south, new states would largely be autonomous within a looser federal system, bound by a universal constitution and declaration of rights, designed primarily for a stringent social safety net, disaster response and military defense.